James White makes Von Wafer expendable. I never got on the Von Wafer bandwagon. The only thing that made him seem great was the stark contrast against a gimpy T-Mac. But The Flight is the goods. I know he was plugged in when the game was out of reach, but the Jazz kept many of their starters in the game until the final buzzer. And White was able to cut to the basket and FINISH unlike Lowry or Wafer. When the refs swallow their whistles like they did tonight, you need hops like The Flight's got in order to get to the rim and properly finish a play. He also seems to have a pretty sweet stroke, so I'd substitute him in ahead of Wafer. Although he may not be completely familiar with the system, he's in midseason form and ready to contribute. We could have really used him tonight.
Everyone was on the Wafer bandwagon when he was hot early in the season. He's cooled off now. You've seen White play maybe a total of 5 minutes (in garbage time no less) for us and you're convinced he's a better option. Oh.My.God.
I was never on the Wafer bandwagon. I thought he was a better option than a gimpy T-Mac, but I didn't think he was a viable long-term solution. White has a strong resume of experience, including being the best player in the D-League this season. My point is that Wafer and White are redundant and if I had to pick one, I'd go with White because he has more athleticism to finish at the rim.
Whoa. I love the quick release White has that he showed against Minnesota. He made a great drive against the Jazz at the end there. But Wafer has been here all season so he KNOWS(at least I think he knows) the offense infinitely better than White. White aint gettin in the play-off rotation unless there is some injury and even there is probably just more minutes for Barry. James White is like a College Freshman who finished HS a semester early and is on the team for spring practice. We will see what he has next year.
White is our insurance policy, like Wafer was early in the season. And maybe for next season if Morey doesn't secure Ron Artest and we need a new SG for next season. At this point, trusting White is not an option, he might eat up some minutes here and there but as long as Wafer is scoring at least some points in his usual 5-10 minutes of playing time, White isn't likely to replace him unless there is an injury.
My point is we've seen more impressive play from Wafer over a longer time...which eventually settled down. Why are you so sure White won't do the same, if not far worse? And his 'resume' of experience? I think Novak averaged 20 points in the D-League. If it was so great why wasn't everyone else knocking his door down? I hope White turns out to be a baller. But this knee-jerk assumption that 'the next guy we get, I just know he's the answer!' is too much. It's like DaDakota and vspan. Or some other people w/ Gerald Green. And on and on...
I'm pretty impressed with the analysis in response to my posts about James White. I agree that he's too far behind the rest of the team to be able to play meaningful minutes and supplant Wafer from the rotation. And the move seems to have been more about the possibility that Wafer will be looking for more money than Morey determines he's worth, as well as the possibility that he actually pans out and becomes a contributor for this team down the road. But a couple of specific responses: 1. White has always had that athleticism but he's developed his game further and has a more complete offensive repertoire. 2. There's always an allure associated with the new toy. And I confess that I've had those hopes about other players, too. V-Span, Novak and Scola come to mind. But White has paid his dues and he's more seasoned, which makes him more akin to Scola in my book. Moreover, White was a pick-up of the Morey administration, presumably backed up by more statistical data than the scouting of V-Span and Novak. That gives me more confidence that he will probably be another success like a Scola or Lowry. 3. Although White is not ready for prime time with a team that wants to compete like the Rockets do, I think in limited situations like we had against the Jazz where we shifted gears into an attack-mode team that went to the rim on several consecutive plays (all misses with no foul calls), I think White can do that better than Wafer or Lowry or Artest. Why not put him in for those possessions if that's what we're trying to do. I think it's clear that he'd be more effective finishing those plays than our guys were tonight.
This would be a reason why he should perform better, but doesn't prove he is better on the NBA level. I've read how he's more coachable now and has improved his handles and jumpshot. I think the biggest issue is you don't take minutes away from players who stepped up during the season to maybe give a shot to a guy who doesn't know the offense and has proven nothing yet on the NBA level. The only exception would be scrub-time. Scola was a proven player who's been playing intelligent basketball for years on an international level. He's played in the Olympics in some of the biggest games on the planet outside of the NBA and stepped up and succeeded. We also had a weak or tenuous PF rotation that he was cracking. Lowry is getting time because well, we don't really have much other than a platoon system at the point. He's also done better in his limited NBA career than White has. Also people like Wafer were picks of this system. He's played well. He very well could be, but one of the knocks against him coming in from college was that with all his athletic ability, he would rarely drive the paint in traffic. I'm sure he'll get his chance - otherwise they wouldn't have signed him to back-to-back 10 days and into next season. He'll have all the time in the world to prove himself. I'm curious to see how well he plays defense. There're also aspects of his game none of us know about that may be seen by the coaching staff in practice such as he just isn't picking up the offense or can't guard a fire hydrant or rotate correctly on defense. Out of curiosity, would you have said/did you say similar things about Gerald Green?
No. Gerald Green seemed to be a throw in, not someone we sought out and signed. He came straight from high school and his development seemed to stop. I'm as critical of players as anyone, if not more so.
lol I stopped reading the thread after this line. A guy has played what? 8 garbage minutes and just because he runs fast and jumps high we're ready to throw out a regular just because he had a bad game? I remember even Ryan Bowen had dunks during garbage time. Wafer has worked his ass off to crack the Rockets rotation, and he is at least a minor part of what will be a 50ish win season. His penetration and even his passing abilities have really enabled us to make some plays down the stretch. He is an X-factor. We aren't going to mess with that just because some fans are obsessed with a YouTube sensation. I'm glad the coaches don't think that way, and I'm sure they see more than we do. If you get carried off by the wind of every leaper that comes along, you're gonna lose touch with reality. Since when did Wafer not have hops anyway? This is just another ClutchFans moment. James sucks, play Alston. Alston sucks. Play Brooks. Brooks sucks. Play Lowry. Lowry sucks, play White.
I don't mind giving him some garbage minutes, but we don't have any regular minutes available right now.
White only got a minute and-a-half of PT yesterday but he had a nice drive to the basket that impressed the TNT commentators. They loved his athleticism and briefly talked about his hard work to return to the NBA.
When I said that White makes Wafer expendable, I was looking to the future. They have redundant skills (drives and 3-point shots), so if White shows promise and development during Summer League and if Wafer has unrealistic expectations, then we can let Wafer walk and plug in White. But he's been with the Rockets for 20 days, so of course he's not ready to be a regular part of the Rockets rotation and he probably won't be ready until sometime next season. What I was suggesting is that you could use him in limited situations where we need someone to change the pace of the offense, attack the basket and score buckets. That's what Lowry and Wafer tried to do unsuccessfully against the Jazz over a 5 minute span. Doug Collins pointed out that the lightning pace these guys were playing at took Yao out of the game, which I actually thought was fine, as long as they put points on the board. That's the very same strategy that helped Lowry lead us back from 13 points down against the Jazz in the prior game. Only this time, the referees swallowed their whistles and the shots didn't go down. And I am confident that White would have been more effective than Lowry or Wafer were in that situation.
It will be nice to see what James White can do next year. I don't believe there are minutes for him unless the minutes are like last night. He will be fun to watch next season. The Rockets just had a bad shooting night and with Landry being out was also a factor in a game where the Jazz just keep bringing their bigs into the game.
